


To See the Campfires

by kakaitalover, Nemi_Thine



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Crossover, Drabble Collection, Gen, M/M, Non-Chronological
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-11
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2018-02-17 01:19:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2291684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kakaitalover/pseuds/kakaitalover, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemi_Thine/pseuds/Nemi_Thine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An abused, traumatized, socially awkward, quick-to-anger, fire-wielding young boy needs a guardian. Harry, meet Zuko, your new ward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nemi_Thine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemi_Thine/gifts).



> I don't usually include these, but if you want to understand where this is coming from you really need to read the epic [prompt thread](http://dresden-kink.dreamwidth.org/2675.html?thread=1818739#cmt1818739) on the kinkmeme that made it irresistible. A LOT of discussion and idea-bouncing happened to make this thing take shape, and all of it left its mark.
> 
> Title from Garrison Keillor: "Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people."

This Sokka guy wasn't so bad, really, Harry mused. Even the rather hilariously pathetic attempts at flirting were more endearing than irritating, and they were made even funnier by Zuko's blank-faced incomprehension. Although if the kid actually tried to use the line he'd been setting up for the last five minutes he was going to “accidentally” get Harry's staff jabbed into his gut. Zuko might not have noticed what was going on, but Harry's ward deserved better than cheap pick up lines. Sokka could just work up the guts to ask for a proper date point-blank.


	2. Chapter 2

“I would have expected you to be more upset about this.”

Harry gritted his teeth as the man next to him broke the unspoken agreement to ignore each other until they could both leave. Well, he'd thought it was agreed.

“After all,” Johnny Marcone continued, “you are quite notoriously overprotective in regards to your apprentices' sex lives.”

Harry scowled around his thumbnail, glaring at the far table. Why couldn't his kid have made friends with somebody who _didn't_ drag Chicago's Most Infuriating along on their playdates? “Firstly, it's not overprotective when sex – especially someone's first time – is the easiest, most effective, and most popular way to bind someone. Indulging in casual sex is one of the surest ways possible for a young and unprotected practitioner to end up permanently chained to someone who's bad news. They aren't good enough to protect themselves yet, so there will be no sex. At all. End of discussion.”

Marcone paused, apparently filing away this information for future reference or – Harry's scowl deepened as he mentally kicked himself – use. “Secondly?” he prompted.

“What?” Jolted from his worries about the crime lord having new information on binding unsuspecting people, Harry blinked in confusion.

“You said 'firstly'. That implies that there is a 'secondly'.” If there was a bare hint of patient amusement behind the wry words, it was subdued enough for Harry to ignore it, just this once.

“Oh,” Harry shrugged. “If I thought Zuko had a clue that Ice-boy is interested, yeah, I might worry. But he doesn't, and Sokka's a good kid who's definitely not dumb enough to try and force anything. There's nothing to get upset about, yet.”

That lobbed an eyebrow upward. “Zuko's not even aware he's being pursued? That seems ... improbable, at best. Sokka's not exactly being subtle about his interest. Even his sister has picked up on it enough to move past denial and into vengeful brooding.”

“Yeah, well, Zuko's not exactly aware that he's a catch, you know? It tends to take him by surprise that anyone might think well enough of him to want to be his friend, let alone more. A solid decade of abuse doesn't just disappear, no matter how hard the people afterward try to take care of him and let him know that he's loved.”

The blandly skeptical look Marcone had been treating Harry to abruptly sharpened into real interest. “You're saying he's not being direct enough. That … Zuko's missing cues because he genuinely doesn't realize that they could be there, so he doesn't recognize them when he sees them. Because it doesn't occur to him that someone could care about him that way.”

“Um, yeah. Duh.”

“You think … Sokka … should be more blunt about his intentions.”

“Hell no! For one thing, I'd have to send him back extra toasted if he tried that now that he's initiated a formal courtship. Not that I didn't seriously consider it anyway when I realized what he was up to, but at least he's got a high enough opinion of Zuko to want to do things properly. For another, right now they're operating as friends, and frankly, Zuko needs a good, dependable friend he can lean on much more than he needs a romantic interest.”

“Hmm.” The light in Marcone's green eyes was thoughtful.

“Do you know,” he went on after a moment, “that is the second time I've heard this referred to as a formal courtship. Is there some set formula for wooing wizards and practitioners?”

“Eh... Yes and no,” Harry muttered absently as he squinted at the two boys they were chaperoning. Were they getting ready to leave?

“It's not just for humans, it's used throughout the supernatural world, and it's not mandatory or anything. More like a … compliment, I guess. It's a way to show them that you respect them, a declaration of intent that lets them and everybody else know that you think they're important. That you believe they're worth the time and effort and devotion it takes to undergo a formal pursuit, confining yourself to the rules of conduct and seeking their good opinion, just on the chance that you'll be accepted at the end.

“I don't know a lot about it yet except that it can take anything from years to centuries, it's difficult and inconvenient and occasionally dangerous, and it's an extremely serious commitment – if you get accepted it's a bond acknowledged by every power in the magical world. I'm trying to get details from Iroh. He and Zuko are from an old and pretty prestigious family – I think by their clan's standards anything less than a formal courtship would be considered invalid and probably an insult – so he probably knows the etiquette well enough to teach me what's proper. If Ice-boy wants to court my Zuko he's damn well going to do it right.”

Harry was still peering at the teenagers, so he missed the intense focus Marcone paid the distracted, impromptu lecture, as if he was mentally taking notes. Hence he was utterly baffled when the crime lord murmered, “I see,” then stood and nodded to him regally as the boys approached, departing with Sokka and an enigmatic, “Thank you for your insight, Mr Dresden. You've given me much to think about.”

Zuko watched Sokka leave with his host, then turned to his gaping, bewildered teacher. “Sensei? What was that about?”

“Hell if I know, kiddo. Come on, we've got a Potions lesson waiting back at the lab, and you still have a book report to finish.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written by Nemi in the _Campfires_ universe and gifted to me. I happily appropriated it - with her permission! - and post it here with minimal editing.

"Look, Sokka, we can just dip into the Nevernever and come back up on the other side of the border. It's easier that way. You know Silsih knows the way; that's why Gran-Gran contacted him for us!"

"No way, Katara. I trust your and Gran-Gran's mumbo jumbo, but this is serious stuff. Serious not-mumbo jumbo stuff - crossing international borders. We could just avoid the stations as easily - okay, _not_ as easily as we could in the Nevernever, but still! We're going to do this legit, you're going to smile and try your hardest not to hex all their equipment, I'm going to register our weapons as religious relics, and everything will be fine."

"Even your boomerang?"

"Hey, don't disrespect Boomerang! They'll probably think it's a toy, and I'll just tell them Grampy Illaitya made it for me."

"I don't know Sokka, we've been lied to a lot." They'd done a lot of lying, too, mostly about the mumbo jumbo, but Sokka kept his mouth shut. "They aren't of the people, they don't know what a man's word is worth."

"Good thing I brought documentation then!"

"...Sokka, you didn't bring Gran-Gran's newspaper clippings did you? She'll kill you!"

"Katara! I'm insulted! Besides, unlike some people I don't break a photocopier at ten feet. Microfish is the order of the day."

"I think you mean microfiche."

"Whatever; the point is, I got it. And I don't want to be picked up south of the border with no documentation. Now come on, and hold onto your hula hoop!"


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written by Nemi in the _Campfires_ universe and gifted to me. I happily appropriated it - with her permission! - and post it here with minimal editing.

"The shaman had a vision and sent us."

"You walked here. From Yukon." Greg stared flatly at the young man and woman. They certainly bore the traces of being underfed for a while. Their clothing and high backpacks fit the "Inuit" bill to a "T": all brown leather, fur, and the occasional touch of natural dye, not brightly-colored Northface commercial parkas, not to mention the rolled up leather sleeping bags. They also smelled strongly of seal and fish oil. The only odd things out were the old, rusted hula hoop the girl held and the more modern green nylon bag over the boy's shoulder.

"Well, not all the way. We took the sled to town and hitch-hiked a bit. But we did a hell of a lot of walking. We had to eat one of my leather packs on the way."

"Because your grandmother had a vision and sent you on a quest."

"Hey! It's not cool to disrespect a man's religion. And obviously we need religious artifacts for a religious vision quest. Besides, can you imagine how this is going to look on a college entrance paper?" The boy sidled over and somehow got his arm around Greg's shoulders. "Yale, Harvard, Cambridge. They'll practically pay _me_ to attend." He dropped his arms, sighed, and stepped back. "Which'd be the only way for me and my little sister to go, anyway."

 _I always get the weird ones,_ Greg thought, thumbing through forms. _First the nutty Mountie with the wolf and now this. Christ, my life._

"Anything to declare?" he asked, resigned.


	5. Chapter 5

"Right, okay, I'm declaring, uh, dried fish-on-sticks, salted fish-on-sticks, pemmican, three bags of granola, ooh! My seal jerky! Um, some leftover dogfood that's still okay, bear meat, a boomerang-"

"I'm sorry, what?"

"My grandfather Illaitya made it. Gran-Gran was kind of a wild child when she was younger, wandered all the way to Australia and came back with a husband from the Outback. I've got a _killer_ yo-yo he made, too, see how big it is? The steel rings flash in the light when it spins; man, I used to spend hours learning to use this thing. Boomerang's my favorite, though; it's way more versatile, and you can get some good distance with it if you know what you're doing, which I do." The kid buffed his nails. On Greg's other side the little sister was hovering over Kate dissecting everything in her bag before she could even be asked.

"- which is a weed, _a_ weed, not _weed_ weed, obviously, it's not illegal, it's not even domesticated, we harvest it from a clearing two miles south-southwest from the village's shore-facing side - not that we plant it! I mean harvest like gathering, like hunter-gatherer, in the wild? - it's for holy ceremonies and births, to cleanse the afterbirth and ward off - oh, that one's for cooking, it's oregano, I mean seriously oregano, not a euphemism, I got it from -"

Greg pinched his nose. _Always_ the weirdos, how was it even possible?

"Look, I'm carving a yo-yo based on his, see, only with steel studs and a war-rrrior luck-drawing inlay - that part's pretty rough, it still needs some work - see? Pretty punk, right?"


	6. Chapter 6

It began like this:

Zuko had ducked into the antique shop to try and throw off the pack of human jackals that had been stalking him from the library. Hidden behind shelves piled with knick-knacks and junk, he breathed a sigh of relief as they passed – Sensei hated it when he got into fights, and there had been a few too many of them even for him to take on alone – then backed into something that shifted and brought the whole shelf behind him crashing down. Cursing silently he dropped to his knees, trying to fix the mess before the owner called the cops and hoping against hope that the _itachi-niku_ chasing him hadn't heard the noise and realized it was him.

Strange leather boots stepped into his vision, and a not-quite-laughing voice said, “Want a hand with that?” Glancing up with a glare that would strip paint and his mouth open to tell its mocking owner to fuck off and die, he faltered as he looked up into an honest, friendly smile and deep, blue eyes like warm ice chips. Which didn't make sense because ice wasn't _warm,_ his brain insisted, but that didn't seem to matter. He had just enough sense to drop his eyes before a soul-gaze started, and the stranger seemed to take that as permission to kneel and start clearing some of the rubble away.

“So, that bunch of creeps lurking outside the store, they following you?”

Zuko risked a glance, winced when the leader waved nastily at him. Jet never had been very good at taking “no” for an answer, and the resounding defeat Zuko had delivered last time the asshole had pressed his luck had only further damaged the older boy's pride.

“Think it'd help any if me and my sister walk you home?”

-*-*-

The girl was really cute when she gaped, Sokka mused, even if she was a little clumsy. Not that he really had any right to poke fun at someone else's clumsiness, not when he was still recovering from his latest three inch growth spurt, but that collapse of the shelves had been masterful even by his standards.

“We could use some help with directions anyway, if your parents are there. We just got to Chicago, and nobody in this whole city seems to be able to tell us how to get to the address we're staying at.” He turned up the wattage of his smile, hoping she'd look at him again, but she kept her eyes firmly on the floor as she shrugged.

“I don't have parents anymore. But Sensei knows where pretty much anything in the city is, he can probably help.” Her voice was huskier than Sokka expected, and hoarse and strained as if it had to make its way past broken glass in order to be heard. He thought of the facial scarring he'd glimpsed when her hair shifted and wondered if whatever had caused it had damaged her vocal cords too. The thick, metal-studded collar around her throat could be hiding anything.

“Sensei?” he babbled, trying to distract her from the pain that had hunched her shoulders when she mentioned parents, “like in Karate Kid? That's so cool, I've never seen a real dojo! My girlfriend Suki, I mean she was my girlfriend but now we're just friends, she had to go back home and it's kinda hard to date somebody who lives on the far side of Alaska - anyway, she does karate! Well, actually it's tai-chi, but I call it karate because it annoys her. She totally kicks ass, too, I mean butt, she kicks butt, and she's won a bunch of medals and stuff for it! What kind of martial arts does your sensei teach?”

On the plus side, the cute girl was looking at him again, sort of sidelong. True, it seemed to be because she was evaluating whether any person could genuinely be such a moron and still be breathing, but Sokka would take his wins where he got them. He beamed.

“He's not that kind of sensei,” she said eventually. “I call him that because ... because he's not a blood relative, and calling him 'Guardian' would just sound stupid. I live with him.”

“Oh. Well, uh, that's cool too. Uh, just hang on a sec and let me get Katara, okay? I'll be right back, don't move!”

Katara was less than enthused by the idea of warding off a gang of teenage thugs for some strange girl her brother was _totally not_ crushing on (well, maybe a little), even with the promise of directions and maybe even a meal from her grateful guardian when they got her home, but Sokka managed to talk her around.

“Come on, Katara,” he wheedled, indicating where the girl knelt determinedly ignoring the hoots and catcalls from outside as she cleared the mess she'd accidentally made. “You can't tell me we should make a shy thing like her deal with that pack of idiots by herself. They'd eat her alive. Aren't you always saying we ought to help the people who can't fight for themselves? You swore up and down that you'd _never_ stand by and  let people get hurt.”

“Ooh, you – fine. Are you _sure_ this isn't just because of those pretty green eyes you were going on about?”

“Gold. They're gold.” Katara smirked. “Um, and of course that has nothing to do with this! I just don't think we should let her leave alone, is all, and she _said_ her sensei could find anything in the city. I really don't want to camp out here after dark, Katara, humans are way nastier predators than bears. The worst a bear will do is try to kill you.”

His sister tossed her hair impatiently. “Come on then, the storekeeper has a back door. Get your _girlfriend_ and we'll ask him if we can use it.”

“She's not my girlfriend,” he muttered, tramping back to help the pretty Goth girl fix the display. _Not yet, anyway,_ he thought, gathering up her books and making a note to ask if he could borrow the one about physics. It never hurt to get in some extra studying when he could, even though he'd have to be unbelievably lucky to go to college. He just had too many duties to the tribe; he'd never be able to find the time to leave, even if he managed a full ride. Maybe if they found Dad... He shook himself. They'd find Dad and the others, or they wouldn't. He'd go to college, or he wouldn't. There was no point getting morose over “maybes.” Especially not when he could be chatting up his future girlfriend!

“So, I'm Sokka. What's your name?”

“... Zuko.”


End file.
